Former Green Bay Packers running back Ahman Green, the franchise's all-time leading rusher, has revealed he was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson's disease, and says he believes he can stay ahead of it.
Green, 49, made the announcement on the "Go Long" podcast hosted by Tyler Dunne, telling listeners he received the formal diagnosis in January 2025 after years of suspecting something was wrong. His wife had noticed him twitching in his sleep since shortly after he retired from the NFL in 2009. Short-term memory loss and episodes of walking and talking in his sleep followed.
He did not go public right away. Green said he held the news back so he could tell his children and family first, before sharing it with friends or anyone else.
Green told Dunne he had known "something was going on long before" doctors confirmed the diagnosis. His wife first flagged the twitching years ago, but it took time to find the right medical team.
As the New York Post reported, Green described the process bluntly:
"I knew something was going on long before that. I just got a hold of some doctors that I was able to get in contact with. Get the diagnostics, get the testing. And finally got it tested last, it was January of 2025."
By the time he went public, Green said the disease had been part of his life for roughly 18 months. He is managing it through exercise, a clean diet, and medication, though he did not name the specific drugs or the doctors who treated him.
Green framed the early catch as an advantage, not a death sentence:
"To me, I have a jump ahead of it. Just like anybody discovering that they have some type of cancer in their body, I'm ahead of it right now."
Green spent eight of his 12 NFL seasons in Green Bay, piling up 8,322 rushing yards for the franchise, a team record that still stands. He topped 1,000 rushing yards in six of those eight seasons, peaking with 1,883 yards in 2003. Over his full career, which also included time with the Seattle Seahawks and Houston Texans, Green ran for 9,205 yards and 60 touchdowns. He earned four Pro Bowl selections along the way.
He retired in 2009 at 32. Sixteen years later, the disease he now fights may have been quietly taking hold even then.
Green is not the only Packers legend grappling with Parkinson's. His former teammate Brett Favre disclosed his own Parkinson's diagnosis two years ago. AP News reported that Green plans to reach out to Favre, saying he wants to tell him "he has a brother right behind him."
The connection between professional football and neurodegenerative disease remains an open and uncomfortable question. Green's case does not answer it, no medical opinion linking his NFL career to his diagnosis appeared in his public remarks, but two franchise icons from the same roster now sharing the same disease will sharpen the conversation.
Green made clear he wants that conversation to happen. He told Dunne that Parkinson's awareness needs to stay in the public eye:
"It needs to be up front. It needs to be a topic that's always hit. And it's not the end all."
He struck the same defiant note when talking about his own mortality, as AP News captured:
"I know unfortunately there's a day we eventually, where our clock stops ticking. The way I look at it, my clock is going to stop ticking when I want it to stop ticking."
Green explained his delay simply. He wanted his kids to hear it from him, not from a headline or a podcast clip.
"I didn't share it for a long time because I wanted to let my kids know, my family. I let them all know first before I told friends, family, somebody like yourself."
Once that was done, he chose a long-form podcast over a press release or a social media post, a format that let him walk through the timeline, describe his symptoms, and set his own terms. No publicist spin. No filtered statement. Just a man talking about what his body is doing and what he plans to do about it.
Several questions remain unanswered. Green did not identify the doctors or medical institutions that diagnosed him, the specific tests they ran, or the medications he takes. Whether he has experienced symptoms beyond the twitching, memory loss, and sleepwalking he described is unclear. And the question that hangs over every retired NFL player facing neurological decline, whether the sport itself played a role, went unaddressed.
What Green did offer was a model for how to handle hard news: tell your family first, get ahead of the disease, and refuse to treat a diagnosis as a final score.
